Asphyxiation
by okija
Summary: As her world crumbles around her, Sakura struggles to breathe on dry land.


Chapter One

Shinji gazed at the smoking ruins of the caravan and the corpses littered around the clearing with grim eyes. Beside him, Taro strained on his leash and Aoki wiped water out of her eyes. "Could anyone have survived this? Lei's men are merciless, they cut down anyone in their path." He knew this from painful experience.

"We have to check. They said there were ninja in the group, maybe one of them survived." Aoki answered before setting off in the opposite direction from him.

"No ninja has been able to withstand Lei." Shinji called back, before stumbling on a tree root in the dark and letting go of Taro's leash. Eagerly, the dog jumped into the bushes and began barking frantically as his master struggled to keep up with him. "Taro you little shit-" He began, but stopped when he heard the frightened whimpers of a child. Taro had cornered a small figure pressed up against the tree and was barking loudly at it. "Taro, come!" Shinji approached the small figure and squinted in the darkness to better make out the details in front of him. "Don't be afraid." The figure was wearing a yukata and holding up its hands in front of its body. "My name is Shinji." He took another step. "I'm from the village down the road." Pink hair and green eyes. "My sister and I are here to find survivors." He stopped in front of the girl. "Our village was attacked by Lei. I'm sorry if Tora scared you."

"Shinji! Shinji I need help!" Aoki's frantic voice cut across the clearing. Abandoning all attempts at diplomacy he reached forward and grabbed the little girl, tossing her over his shoulder and ignoring her yells and blows as he raced over to where his sister was kneeling in the mud. There was a figure next to her, unmoving and still and with a sick lurch to his stomach he realized the injured woman was pregnant. "She's alive!"

Shinji deposited the girl in his sister's arms and knelt by the woman. "Not for much longer." Her breathing was faint and shallow and there many arrows in her back, as well as a gaping wound that went from shoulder to hip, nearly severing the arm. Her pulse was thready and weak.

"Mommy!" The little girl cried, struggling in his sister's arms.

"Look away girl." The woman was dead already but her belly was large enough that the child might yet survive. "Aoki, make sure she looks away." He drew out the knife from his belt and prayed that it would be sharp enough, that his hands would be steady. While the little girl screamed and Tora barked and the rain pounded the earth, Shinji cut through the pregnant woman's belly, cut through the muscle and fat and skin to reach the womb, then reached his hands in and drew out a baby. Tora barked and the girl screamed but the child did not cry, though Shinji could hear his heart beat after pressing his ear to the boy's chest.

"Is it alive?" Aoki asked after a few minutes. The girl had stopped screaming and was now sobbing quietly.

"Yes, but he is weak." Shinji stripped off his shirt and wrapped the infant in it. "We should get them both to grandmother right away."

And so they arrived at their grandmothers house, one of the only buildings in the village left standing, with two children in tow. She immediately took the infant from Shinji's arms and examined him as the siblings finally allowed themselves to relax in the warmth of her house.

"He may live." Their grandmother declared after a few moments. "Shinji, Kohaku is in the back. Fetch her, the boy will need a wet nurse."

Shinji hesitated. "Grandmother, are you sure? It's not been long enough, she's still grieving…"

"We have no other choice." His grandmother replied. "And perhaps taking care of this one will allow her to banish the memory of her own."

Aoki started at that, the girl in her arms asleep. "You can't be planning on keeping them?"

"If we cannot find their family, then yes I plan on it." She raised one hand to stop Aoki's protests. "The temple has too many orphans already, and wandering travelers families will be hard to track down. There are many families here wanting another child and if fate sees fit to give us two orphans I see no reason why we shouldn't keep them. Put the girl to bed now."

Grumbling, Aoki did as she was told.

* * *

Two days later, the girl still had not woken up and the boy still had not cried. Kohaku doted on the boy and loved him as though he were her own but she was fearful of giving him a name until he cried and showed that he would live. Nobody doted on the girl, busy as they were with rebuilding, and so nobody paid any heed to her soundless, motionless sleep until the second day had almost passed. It was the monk who finally gave them a reason why she would not wake up.

"Her chakra is almost gone." He said, his calloused hand resting on her forehead.

"Why?" Aoki asked. "Is she sick?" She had only the vaguest idea of what chakra was.

"She was in training to be a ninja." The monk responded, his eyes solemn.

"A child so young?"

"They take them younger than this. Was she doing anything with her hands when you found her?"

"Yes." It was Shinji who spoke instead of Aoki. "She was holding them in front of her body like this." He imitated the young girls odd way of clasping her hands and the monk nodded.

"She hid herself while the attack happened, using chakra and hand signs to form a jutsu, a sort of spell. However, her chakra reserves are very small and she exhausted herself quickly. That is why she won't wake up. All you can do is wait. In the meantime, I will inform the nearest ninja that one of their own is here and they will come for her."

* * *

Sakura woke up to the smell of roasting meat and the sound of footsteps dangerously close to her head. She was incredibly thirsty and she opened her eyes blearily, wanting to ask her parents what sort of place they'd stopped at this time. Then she remembered. Her father, burning as he died. Her mother running and running and then fighting against the ones who killed her husband, only to be gutted like a pig by that man with the dog. Herself, hiding and whimpering like a useless coward while her parents died.

She made a noise then and someone noticed. It was a woman with straight black hair and amber coloured eyes. "She's awake." The woman announced loudly, hurting Sakura's head. Struggling to move, she propped herself upped on her elbows and the woman helped her move until she was sitting upright. "Do you want anything? Water? Food?" Sakura nodded at both and the woman disappeared. She realized that she was lying on a mattress on a dirt floor in somebody's house, and that there were five other people in the room with her. One was the man with the dog and she stiffened when his eyes met hers.

The woman returned with a glass of water and gave it to Sakura, who nearly choked on it. "Easy there, slow sips, take it slow." The woman said and Sakura complied, the water soothing her ravaged throat. "What's your name?"

"-kura." Sakura swallowed and tried again. "Sakura. Haruno."

The woman smiled. "I'm Aoki. Would you like to see your brother?" Sakura had a brother? Her eyes widened as she remembered the still form pulled from her mother. Slowly, hesitantly, she nodded and the woman smiled and called someone else into the room. She took a bundle from the new figure and knelt by Sakura. Her brother was pale and sleepy, his eyes closed. He didn't have any hair. She reached out to take him from Aoki and Aoki let her, showing her where to put her hands.

He was lighter than she expected. She stared down at him for a few minutes and then he stirred and burst into tears, a loud, hideous wail that felt like it would split open Sakura's skull.

Aoki looked delighted as she took him from Sakura's arms. "He's crying!" She said it like it was a good thing and judging from the expressions on the faces of the others in the room, they agreed with her.

Sakura was about to ask why he was crying when the door opened and four figures stepped in. "We're here looking for the Harunos." Their leader, a large man with long black hair and the pupilless white eyes of the Hyuugas said. The three behind him looked young, maybe fourteen at the most.

"I'm here." Sakura said when none of the adults in the room responded. The man nodded at her. "My brother's there." She pointed to him.

"I want to know where her parents bodies are. We'll give them a proper funeral in Konoha." He added after seeing her distressed look. The man with the dog stepped up.

"I can show you where they're buried."

The Hyuuga nodded and motioned to two of his students, then whispered an order to them that Sakura could not make out. They followed the man with the dog out of the house. Meanwhile the man took Sakura's brother from Aoki. "Sakura, can you stand?"

"Yes." She responded, though she did not actually know if she could. Pulling back the blanket covering her, she stood on shaky legs and realized that she was wearing a blue shirt and jeans instead of her yukata. Both were slightly too large. She stood on shaky legs and nearly toppled over when the remaining fourteen year old grabbed her. "Thanks." She muttered, embarrassed. Pushing her away she managed to take a few steps. "I can walk."

"Not very well. Shiho-chan, carry her." Ignoring Sakura's yelp of protest Shiho picked her up and followed her master out of the house. The cool breeze washed across Sakura's fevered cheeks and she realized just how stuffy the room in the house was.

"Are we going back to Konoha?" Sakura asked.

"Yes, once my students return." He said nothing more as he gave a purse brimming with money to an elderly woman outside of the house and started walking away from the village. "Now sleep." And though she tried to fight it off, Sakura did.

* * *

"…shouldn't have used genjutsu on her when her chakra levels were that low." It was an unfamiliar voice.

"I did only as I was commanded." The Hyuuga. Sakura struggled to open her eyes. "Subduing her was the best option and genjutsu was the safest way to do so."

She was in a hospital. The lights were bright and clear and hurt her eyes. Shifting slightly, she tried to lift up her hands but stopped when she felt a sharp insistent pain in her left hand. "Oh no, honey don't move." The woman who had been arguing with the Hyuuga told her. "You'll rip your IV out." She fussed about Sakura for a moment before speaking again. "Do you remember your name?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell it to me?"

"He can." Sakura said, suddenly feeling childish and stubborn. The Hyuuga should have told her everything she wanted to know.

"I need to hear it from you. Your age as well."

"I'm Sakura Haruno, and I'm eight years old. My parents are… my parents are…" Burning and bleeding and dead on the field.

"Don't think about that honey." The woman said, stroking her hair. "What about your brother, does he have a name?"

And it took Sakura a moment to remember that she had a brother, a tiny little thing that had been cut out of her mother as she lay dying. "They wanted to name him Kazuo if it was a boy." She said instead.

"Okay, well Kazuo is being checked out by a doctor in another part of the hospital right now but if all goes well you should be able to see him soon okay?" Sakura nodded dumbly and the woman smiled. "Are you hungry? Hospital food isn't very good but I can get you some if you'd like." Sakura nodded again.

Soon turned out to mean four days. Four days of waiting listlessly in her room, silent as the nurses chatted to her and Ino sat on the edge of her bed and told her all about what had happened at school since she'd been gone, what pranks Naruto had pulled (_Mizuki-sensei still has purple hair Sakura-chan, you should come back to school soon so you can see it_), how Shikamaru had discovered this game called shogi and would not stop bugging people to play with him, about the cute new puppy Kiba was hauling around everywhere before being escorted from the room by her silent father. Every time Ino came, she brought more and more flowers to the room (some were from Naruto, the orange tiger lilies) until the tiny white space smelled like spring and the colours of the flowers splashed vividly against the walls.

Then they wheeled him in and Sakura went over to him and said his name. He stirred but did not wake and when Sakura touched his face he made a sleepy sound. She felt herself smile.

The door creaked open. "Haruno-kun?"

Sakura blinked, she had never been Haruno-kun, she had always been Sakura-chan, but that was before her parents died and the tall man was looking at her expectantly so she said, "Yes?" And pulled her arm out of Kazuo's crib, wondering at how dry and croaky her voice felt.

The man relaxed. "Ah good, the nurses told me you weren't speaking but I thought I might as well check. I'm Tachibana Takeru, I am, or was I suppose, your parents lawyer." He looked around the room nervously before grabbing the singular chair. "May I sit? I have some things to talk about with regards to your parents, ah, funeral and the future of you and your brother."

"Yes Tachibana-san, you can sit." Sakura sat on the edge of her bed and tried to look dignified and composed, like she wasn't wearing pyjamas and talking about the disposal of her parents corpses (_They would be rotten by now, maggots festering where there eyes would be _and Sakura drove such thoughts from her mind before they burrowed in deeper).

"Ah good. Now, I have your parent's wills and they both specified that they would prefer to be buried together, in the Haruno family grave. That's okay with you, I assume?" Sakura nodded. "Because you've been, ah, incapacitated and are in any case too young to prepare such an event, I have been taking care of the fine details for you, though I can of course cancel all present plans if they don't sit well with you." He then went on to launch a detailed description of all the funeral details, which Sakura sat mutely through, only interrupting him to insist that the flowers be bought from the Yamanaka's. "The wake will be held two days from today, the funeral the day afterward." She nodded to show she understood. "Now I have to move onto, ah, different subjects, namely the care of you and your brother. Now since there are no eligible relatives to take you in your best bet would be to take up residence in the local orphanage, they'll take care of-"

"I can take care of me and Kazuo." Sakura said softly, swinging her feet.

He blinked. "You mean you want to live on your own?"

"Yes." Sakura didn't want to live in the crowded orphanage, and she didn't want to give up her home.

"Well there is certainly precedent, ah, after the Nine-Tails attacked there were many children as young as you or younger caring for relatives on a government assisted salary. It will be difficult, but I can make it happen if that is your wish."

"It is." Sakura replied.

"You will of course have a caretaker visit you to help ease the, ah, burden of Kazuo-chan's care. You'll also be subjected to regular checkups to make sure you are capable of living on your own. Since you're planning on attending the Ninja Academy, you are planning on re-enrolling," Sakura nodded, "Good good, since you're attending the Academy we will have to find a suitable daycare for Kazuo-chan to attend while you learn and so on and so forth." Kazuo chose this moment to burst into tears. "Ah, I'll go get a nurse." He left the room as Sakura walked over to Kazuo's crib.

Kazuo was ugly when he cried, his large face turning red and wrinkled as his mouth opened wide. He had killed her mother and Sakura reached down to caress his face, he had killed her mother and so she could not love him but for her sake she would protect him all the same.

* * *

Sakura glared at the flowery yukata held in the nurses hands. Yukata's were not proper attire for a ninja, they restricted your legs (_and she sobbed while she stumbled and ran her fathers death still fresh in her mind as her mother pulled insistently at her arm_) they tangled up around your feet (_she screamed when she fell and her mother cursed and pulled her over her shoulder, the first of many arrows sprouting in her back_) and they made you look like a little girl. "Is something wrong?" The nurse asked.

Sakura swallowed her objections and said, "No. Turn around while I'm getting changed, please." The nurse did so and Sakura shucked off her hospital-issued pyjamas before reluctantly pulling the yukata on. "I'm ready now." She was leaving the hospital after five days spent being poked and prodded and asked about her feelings. Sakura could not have been more relieved. Even the feeling of the nurse adjusting the sling on her back and the weight of Kazuo could not dampen her feeling of freedom.

Several of the nurses waved at her as she left and she waved back. After so long spent in the hospitals bright white light the sun looked almost dull, even as it warmed her face as she took her first hesitant steps out of the building. The road was crowded and she caught more than a few questioning stares as she walked to her house on a route that would take her nowhere near the Yamanaka's and Ino's terribly understanding eyes.

She arrived at an apartment that had lain undisturbed for almost a month. Dust was thick on the floor and as the lights steadily flickered on she pointedly ignored the familiar aspects of the house and focused on the new. There was now a crib resting in what used to be her parents room, a footstool in front of the sink and her entire current stock of food consisted solely of baby formula. Making up her mind to thank Tachibana later, Sakura dragged the footstool over to the crib, where she carefully extracted Kazuo from his sling and placed him in it. Then she walked upstairs to her bedroom to change into something she considered more ninja like, and was frustrated to find that there was nothing that met her standards. In a fit of pique, she gathered as many dresses, yukatas, and skirts she could, stomped downstairs and deposited them all in a large black garbage bag.

"Is there a reason you're throwing out all of your clothes, Haruno-kun?" Sakura started, she hadn't heard the newcomer come in and was just about to apologize for not greeting her when she came face to face with a horribly scarred woman. It seemed like the entire left side of her body was a mass of pink scar tissue and shiny stretched skin. Her left hand was a hideous claw, the skin stretched tight over the muscle, causing her fingers to inadvertently curl in on themselves. The scars continued all the way to her purple hairline, and they pulled down the edges of her eye until it looked half-closed. "It happened during the Nine-Tails attack. The chakra is so malevolent that it nearly burned me alive when I got too close." Sakura realized she had been staring. "If you find me too scary," The woman continued, "I'll leave and you will be assigned a new caretaker."

"I don't find you scary." Sakura lied. "And I was throwing away my clothes because they're stupid and girly and ninja don't wear stupid, girly things."

The woman smiled sadly. "I was once a ninja and I can assure you that we do indeed wear stupid and girly things when we feel like it."

"Well I don't feel like it." Sakura snapped. "And I won't ever feel like it so I'm throwing them away."

"If you say so. I'm Inoue Misami and I will be your caretaker. You'll have to provide your own food and clothing but I'll cook and clean for you both until you come of age." Kazuo broke into tears then and she started to move towards the master bedroom. "I'll also be teaching you how to take care of Kazuo-chan here. If I think you're not doing a good job of it, he'll be taken away."

Sakura's stomach lurched at that. "I can take care of him Inoue-san." She said, though she wasn't sure if she wanted to.

"I'm sure you can Haruno-kun." She lifted Kazuo out of his crib and sniffed him before making a face. "Do you know how to change a diaper?" Sakura shook her head. "Come along and I'll teach you."

There was an absolutely baffling amount of information and work involved with taking care of newborns, Sakura discovered over the next few hours as Inoue taught her when Kazuo should be fed, how to hold him, signs that he was sick and dozens of other tiny things that Sakura had never even considered needing. But Sakura was smart and determined and so she absorbed all of the information easily. As she was finishing setting up her parents alarm clock so that it would ring every two hours (Sakura was a firm believer in schedules and did not trust Kazuo to know when it was most convenient for him to be fed) Inoue handed her a packet full of money, more than Sakura had ever seen before.

"This is your weekly allowance Haruno-kun. I suggest using it to get food for yourself and diapers for Kazuo, and possibly some clothes as well if you're planning on throwing all of yours away." She smiled, a sight that was both unpleasant and reassuring. "It's time for me to leave now, I trust you'll be alright after this?"

"Yes Inoue-san, I'll be fine." Sakura was still gaping at the amount of money held in her hand.

"Then I'll see you tomorrow." The disfigured woman left the apartment and Sakura was left alone with her brother.

"You are so much work already Kazuo-chan." She told her brother. He gazed back up at her with guileless green eyes a shade darker than her own and blinked. Then somebody started pounding on the door and Sakura froze.

"Sakura-chan I know you're in here!" Ino's voice floated through the tightly shut door. "Open up!" Sakura curled up on her parents bed and breathed in the familiar scent. "Please?" Sakura put her hands over her ears and commanded her heart to stop beating so hard. "I need to know that you're okay." She sounded frightened and Sakura hated her for that, hated her for the guilt and fear that flashed hot and yellow behind her eyes. "Sakura-chan?" There was a long silence. "I'm leaving. The flowers are in front of the door. Don't knock them over, okay?" Sakura still waited for a long, long time to get up, until Kazuo's wails forced her to move and feed him, her heart still pounding in her chest and panic still coating the back of her throat. When Kazuo had stopped wailing and was safely in his crib again, she walked to the door, steeled herself and opened it slowly.

Nobody stood there. There was a vase filled with flowers on the front step and as she picked it up Sakura realized how hard it would have been for Ino to lug this heavy thing all the way to her apartment. She felt another pang of guilt, which she ruthlessly buried, and moved the flowers to the kitchen table. No doubt they meant something. No doubt Ino had spent hours carefully selecting each one, spinning a tale of sadness and death and unexpected hope with each flower but Sakura did not know what flowers meant, what flowers did other than look pretty and wither and die.

Sakura did not eat that night, and she fell asleep in her parents bed.

* * *

When she woke up in the morning to the insistent sound of the alarm clock (it was eight o'clock and time for Kazuo's feeding) she realized just how hungry she was and after feeding Kazuo, she promptly ate half a box of dry cereal because there was no milk in the house. Her gaze fell upon the package of money and she remembered Inoue's advice. Reluctantly fishing a dress out of the garbage bag, she put Kazuo in a sling on her back and slung the bag containing his bottles and diapers (she should probably buy toys for him too) over her shoulder.

Her first stop was the nearest clothing store, where she bought herself two pairs of trousers and three red shirts, and after a moments thought, a new pair of sandals because hers were getting too tight. Then she got Kazuo some baby clothes. The cashier cooed over Kazuo, but had the sense to not ask where her parents were, unlike the manager of the store, who had been subjected to a dead eyed stare and a flat explanation of her where her family's burial plot was.

"That can't be right." Sakura protested. "This takes away almost all of my money."

"Well you can put some stuff away if you want, but I'm afraid that it is right." The cashier replied, looking oddly sympathetic. "Your brother is going to grow very fast so you can probably get rid of some of his clothes."

Sakura had calculated the costs in her head and realized that the sum was correct, and she had not been given much money at all if it could be thrown away so quickly on a few items of clothing. "No." She finally said. "I'll take them all." This left her with less than five hundred ryo and as she stormed back to her apartment to deposit her clothing and get changed into something more suitable, she decided to break open her own small stash of money to buy food. Clothes were expensive but food couldn't be that bad.

* * *

As she stood in the cereal aisle of the local supermarket, Sakura realized that she was right. Food was not as bad as clothing. It was worse. With a terrible sinking feeling in her stomach, Sakura knew that with the money she had now she could buy exactly one small box of cereal and then be completely broke. She was going to starve. Kazuo would get taken away and she would get sent to the orphanage and she would have failed again and she would-

"Sakura-chan! Hey Sakura-chan!" Naruto came to a stop beside her, his deafening voice ringing through the aisle. He was clutching a box of sugar-coated-shuriken-stars (which were made of wheat, not metal) and his stupid pair of goggles was perched on his head. "I haven't seen you for ages! It's good to see you, are you buying food?" His face fell suddenly. "Oh and I'm sorry about your parents. My parents are dead too." He brightened up. "Did you get the flowers I sent you? Ino said she'd deliver them because the nurses wouldn't let me in to see you, is that your brother?"

At the mention of her parents, Sakura's heart beat too fast and her throat got swollen and her tongue felt like lead, but Naruto waited patiently for her to speak, bright blue eyes lasered in her direction. "Yes, this is Kazuo. I got your flowers, Naruto-kun, thank you for sending them."

"No problem!" Naruto replied cheerfully, his face splitting into a grin. Then he noticed the money clutched tightly in her hand. "You won't be able to buy anything with that. Is that why you're here? To buy food?" When she nodded he told her bluntly, "You should have brought more money."

"I don't have any more money." Sakura whispered, her face flushing.

"I do, you want me to buy you food?" Naruto asked excitedly, practically bouncing on his feet.

"Don't you need it for yourself?" Sakura wasn't going to turn down an offer like that, even if it did come from the most annoying boy in her class.

"Nope! I was orphaned by the Nine-Tailed Fox so I get war orphan kits sent every week, they have lots of food. No ramen or cereal though." He made a face. "I asked the Hokage to add ramen and cereal but he said it wasn't good for me. The old man is so stupid sometimes."

"Naruto-kun you shouldn't call the Hokage stupid!" Sakura replied, appalled by his flagrant disrespect of the God of Shinobi.

Naruto puffed up his cheeks. "But he is."

"Is not, and shouldn't you be buying food for me right now?"

"Oh yeah!" Naruto's face lit up. "Follow me, I'll show you the place to get all the best food."

The place to get all of the best food turned out to be the discount aisle. Naruto navigated it like a seasoned veteran, his constant babble of commentary on the store and its workers following Sakura as she firmly told Naruto that no, mouldy bread was not a bargain deal and that expired milk was very bad for you so she was buying the regular kind even if Naruto was paying for it and by the time they reached the checkout aisle she'd heard enough of his voice that she was sure it would haunt her dreams for weeks to come.

"I'll pay you back." She told him stiffly as he forked over an astounding amount of crumpled bills.

"No, it's okay, we're friends right? Friends do this stuff for each other, I'll help you carry this stuff home too." Sakura, having interacted with Naruto a grand total of five times before this, wondered where he got the idea that they were friends.

"We're friends," She said slowly and tried not to startle at how happy that made him look, "But I'll still pay you back."

"Okay!" He beamed at her and Sakura led the way out of the store and away from the oddly hostile glares of the people in it. After a few minutes of quiet walking, with even more people giving her and Naruto that strange, hateful look, Naruto said, "Your brother kind of looks like you, you know. Except he's ugly and you're not."

Sakura felt a smile pull up the edges of her mouth. "He is ugly, but I think all babies are."

"Huh." Naruto said and then e launched into an incredibly detailed description of all the babies he'd ever met and concluded that yeah they were all pretty ugly but nowhere near as ugly as Kazuo so maybe she should take him to a doctor or something to make sure he wasn't actually an alien like he'd seen in that movie when he snuck into the movie theatre but got thrown out halfway through the movie so he didn't know what had happened to the alien in the end and he was still babbling when they entered the first floor of Sakura's apartment, arms aching from the weight of the groceries.

Inoue was already there and she froze when she turned around, an unreadable expression on her ravaged face. "Naruto-kun?"

"Hey Misami-chan! I was just helping Sakura with her groceries, are you her caretaker?" Not waiting for an answer, he turned to Sakura. "Misami-chan is the best! You'll like her, she's really nice and cooks really well."

Regaining her composure, Inoue walked over to them and started to take the groceries from them. "I am Sakura's caretaker Naruto-kun. I'll put these away while you two take care of Kazuo okay?"

"He smells like shit." Naruto commented loudly and Sakura was too busy dreading the task before her to hit him for his foul language.

"I'll change his diaper. Naruto-kun, wait for me in the living room okay?" Naruto grinned brightly and ran over to the couch.

After the horrendous task had been finished and Kazuo was safely in his crib. Sakura had to decide what to do with Naruto. He had been exceedingly generous and Sakura probably owed him more than she could ever repay but she just didn't know what to do with him. She'd never been friends with a boy before. Walking over to where he sat, she hesitantly took a seat in the battered armchair that had been her fathers favourite so she was facing him. "Um. Do you know how to make origami?" She blurted out after several minutes of awkward staring. Her father (and it still hurt to think of him) had taught her how to make some basic origami shapes and it was the only thing they did together on a regular basis besides play board games.

"Nope!" He sounded so cheerful about it, but then he'd been grinning non-stop since she let him into her apartment.

"I'll teach you okay?" And so she fetched some suitable paper from a drawer and they spent the next hour making different shapes while Inoue cooked and cleaned and took care of Kazuo.

"I made a fox!" Naruto declared happily, proudly showing off his lopsided creation. Behind them there was a loud clanging noise behind them as Inoue dropped a pan on the floor and apologized before bending down to pick it up, her body tense and afraid. "What's her problem?" Naruto asked in the loudest whisper imaginable. "She doesn't normally look at me that way."

"It's because you made a fox." Sakura whispered back. "She was hurt by the Kyuubi remember, foxes are scary to her." She said this with great authority as though she was certain this was the case but she too wondered about the brief, dark look that Inoue had shot them before she bent down to pick up the pans.

"Oh." And Naruto looked so horribly guilty. Running up to her, he grabbed Inoue's claw like hand and said, "I'm sorry Misami-chan I didn't know you were afraid of foxes." He showed her the orange paper fox. "Besides it's not real, it's only made of paper. There aren't any real foxes here you don't have to be afraid." Sakura wondered how he could hold on to her hand without shying away from the ruined mess of her face but he did and managed to look totally earnest while doing so.

"I know, Naruto-kun." Her voice was stiff but she smiled and ran her ruined hand through his hair. "You just startled me, that's all. I'm fine." She carefully extricated herself from his grasp and started moving towards the door. "Sakura-chan, I've made you and Naruto-kun supper, it's in the fridge. Just heat it up when you're hungry. I have to go now." It was early for her to be leaving and Sakura was about to say so but she was gone before Sakura could get the words out.

"I'm sick of origami." Naruto announced in his deafen-thy-neighbors voice. "Let's play something else." When she saw her reaching for the Go board his face fell. "I suck at that game." He grumbled but he obediently played it with her all the same.

Sakura had won five times when the knocking on the door started. "I'll get it!" Naaruto yelled, obviously relieved to be away from the Go board of doom, and he sprinted to the door before Sakura could tell him to stop. "Oh, hi Ino-chan, Sakura and me are playing Go."

"Naruto-kun? What are you doing here?" Ino sounded incredulous.

"I told you, I'm playing Go." Naruto snapped back defensively. "That game hates me and wants me to suffer." He added after a few moments.

"Well let me in then, I want to see Sakura-chan." Ino barreled past Naruto and appeared in the edge of Sakura's vision.

She was carrying flowers again, Sakura noted bitterly as she refused to look in Ino's eyes. "Naruto-kun, since Ino-chan is here let's play Monopoly instead." He'd been begging her to play a different game ever since his second defeat.

"Alright!" He shouted and went about trying to find the monopoly board while Sakura studiously avoided Ino's gaze and Ino put the flowers on the table. "I get to be the shuriken!"

"I'm the thimble." Sakura replied automatically.

"Sakura-"

"Ino, what do you want to be?" Sakura said loudly, before Ino could talk.

"I don't-"

"There aren't any pieces called I don't."

Ino was silent for a minute. "I'll be the boot then," and she sat down on the other side of Sakura before Naruto plopped the board down in between them and started setting up the bank.

The first game was played in silence, Sakura ignoring Ino, Ino trying to get Sakura's attention, and Naruto oblivious to anything other than the fact that he was winning. By the second game, Ino had taken to accusing Naruto of cheating because how else could he be winning by such a landslide and Naruto fervently denied it and they got into an argument and neither of them noticed that something was wrong with Sakura until she curled up into a ball and started crying.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, utterly confused and Sakura wanted to tell him that her parents and her had always played Monopoly on Friday afternoons and her father had always accused her mother of cheating and now they never would again but instead she took another halting breath and shed more tears in great hiccupping sobs that wracked her entire body.

Ino abandoned her fight with Naruto so that she could wrap her arms around Sakura and, hating herself for being so weak, Sakura let her and hugged her fiercely and buried her face in Ino's shoulder and sobbed even louder.

When she was finally able to calm down and stop trying and extricate herself from Ino's grasp, the alarm was buzzing and Kazuo was crying. "I'm sorry, I need to feed him." She told them before she left the room.

Even as she was in the bedroom she could hear Naruto's worried whisper. "Will Sakura-chan be okay?" She didn't hear Ino's response but when she exited her parents bedroom with Kazuo in tow he trotted over to her and said, "Hey Sakura I know that Misami-chan made dinner for us but shee didn't make any for Ino so I'm going to go get us all ramen from Ichiraku, it's really close to here you're really lucky, is that okay?"

"Thank you, Naruto-kun, that will be great." She said and she tried to smile for him but it came out as more of a grimace.

When he had left and Kazuo was drinking hungrily from his bottle, Ino asked the questions that had obviously been on her mind since she'd arrived. "Okay why is Naruto here and why have you been avoiding me?"

"Naruto-kun is my friend and he was helping me with my groceries." Sakura didn't mention that he'd bought them for her and she felt a brief pang of guilt when she realized that with the ramen he would be spending even more money on her. "And I've been avoiding you because I don't want to talk to you."

"Why don't you want to talk to me?"

"Because you ask too many questions." _And you know me too well._ A sullen silence descended over the apartment until Naruto arrived back with three cling wrapped bowls of ramen held in a plastic bag.

"Hey Sakura-chan I hope you like pork because I got you miso ramen with extra pork because that's my favourite and I got Ino-chan crab ramen because it's the worst ramen Ichiraku serves and she accused me of cheating so yeah!" He stuck out his tongue at Ino and Sakura giggled at the scandalized expression on her face.

"You must have something wrong with your tastebuds Naruto-kun, this ramen is delicious." Ino declared, her mouth full.

"Everything Teuchi-san makes is delicious, believe it!" Naruto said proudly, as though the man's accomplishments were his own.

"It's good." Sakura said softly and she noted the approving look Ino gave Naruto, who started beaming. "Did you really turn Mizuki-sensei's hair purple?"

"Yep! It was my first ninja prank!" He looked smug.

"What's a ninja prank?" Ino asked, obviously eager to keep the conversation going. She had never been good with sitting silently.

"It's a prank I pull on a ninja, duh." Naruto finished slurping up the last of his noodles. "Mizuki must not be a very good ninja if he can be caught by me though."

"Yeah, none of the Academy teachers are very good ninja." Ino replied with the sage wisdom that only the child of a major clan could possess. "It's because they specialize in teaching and not doing."

"Nuh-uh!" Naruto's protest surprised both Ino and Sakura. "Iruka-sensei is a really good ninja!"

"Not compared to a jonin he isn't."

"Can you guys not argue about this in my house?" Sakura asked, because she knew enough about Naruto to see that he was just as stubborn as Ino and their disagreement would soon break into a shouting match if she didn't intervene.

"Sorry Sakura-chan."

"Yeah, sorry."

After only a few moments Ino said. "Um, I've gotta go. My dad was expecting me back two hours ago. Thanks for the ramen, Naruto-kun."

"No problem!"

After exchanging a goodbye hug and promising that she wouldn't lock her out of the house the next time she tried to visit, Ino left and Sakura was left alone with Naruto once again. He was already busy clearing away the plastic containers into the garbage and without turning around he said, "Hey d'you wanna watch some tv? Go is boring and Monopoly makes you cry so tv is our best bet."

"Monopoly doesn't make me cry. Being reminded of my parents does." Sakura walked over to the television and turned it on. A grainy black and white image flickered across the screen and she absently changed the channels until it rested on the childrens network.

"Oh. I used to cry all the time too. I don't know who my parents were, so I cried about that, but mostly about being alone." He flopped down on the couch. "But I don't cry anymore because I'm really lucky. Living on my own is fun and I'm going to be Hokage one day and I've got Iruka-sensei and Misami-chan and Teuchi-san and the old man and you so I'm not lonely anymore." He grinned at her. "So you don't have to cry anymore because you've got Misami-chan and Ino-chan and Kazuo-chan and me even if you don't have your parents."

Sakura almost told him that she would trade him for her parents in a heartbeat but instead she said thank you and watched cartoons with him until they were both yawning. He gave her a hug before he left, apparently under the impression that it was what friends did when they said goodbye to one another and Sakura watched him running down the street from her window until he turned a corner and vanished from her sight.

She fell asleep in her parents bed in a room with a brother she couldn't stand to look at and when she fell asleep she dreamt of drowning in a dark and soundless sea.

* * *

AN: This has a plot, I swear to god, it's just not evident yet.


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